January 3, 2014

2 to 3 standard deviation gap in pull-up power between male and female Marines

You've probably heard that the Obama Administration's demand to put women in combat has stumbled upon only 45% of females at the end of Marines boot camp being able to do the minimum required three pull-ups. That's compared to 99% of men, which suggests a z-score difference of two to three standard deviations.

The Marines have always been a public relations juggernaut so they had the cojones to release this data, but they're still going to give in to the zeitgeist and change the requirements for women. But I doubt if they'll actually have many women storm the beaches, just as none of the 343 firepersons who died on 9/11 were women, and nobody has ever seemed to have a problem with that.

Eventually, a couple of decades from now, feminists will be shocked, shocked to discover that women in combat units aren't actually being sent into ground battles with packs full of depleted uranium ammunition, they're just being handed iPads and told to keep track of stuff while the men go do the fighting. This will cause a big hubbub in 2032 and eventually most of the women officers on combat-watching duty will be given promotions, and then the subject will disappear down the memory hole until it becomes the feminist brouhaha of 2052 and then 2072. Democrats have to win elections, you know.

As I pointed out in 1997, if America is serious about narrowing this Gap, the obvious solution is steroids, lots and lots of steroids. If women don't have enough natural male hormones to validate your theories, then just shoot them up with artificial male hormones.

80 comments:

Anonymous said...

they should just lower the standard and send all of them together into the next battle.

Anonymous said...

Although all occupation are, in theory at least, open to women, it is rather strange that one never sees female garbage collectors, or for that matter bricklyaers or plasterers, (I'm writing from the UK, and I gather that those latter two ancient and honorable occupations do not exist in the land of 'sheet-rock' and 'baloon-frames').
Despite all the rhetoric, there appear to be a few jobs that women 'just won't touch' regardless of the symbolism and 'oneupmanship'. Believe the female antipathy toany notion of 'dirt' is very, very strong indeed. Therefore one must conclude that the military is by and large a 'dirt-free envirionment'. Perhaps if 1914 style trench warfare - the experience of being literally swamped in rain-saoked freezing cold Belgian clay for months on end, with attendant foot-rot, ever comes back into fashion, we will see women flee the military in droves.

PropagandistHacker said...

but, steve, the really important thing is not that we have soldiers who can do pullups, but that women are able to go out and earn money that can be spent on consumer goods and products. That money will increase the GDP and increase corporate profits and increase advertising purchases in the corporate media.

Every person available must be earning and spending in order to increase GDP, growth and corporate profits. That is also why we need more immigrants. More females, more immigrants, more workers, more consumers in america. It's all for the Greater Good of The Most Holy Corporate Profits, steve.

Remember, steve, GDP uber alles!

What are you, some kind of commie?

Anonymous said...

>>>the obvious solution is steroids, lots and lots of steroids

Worked for Serena Williams!

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERwzqvs7vvU

It's no secret that female firefighters and policewomen are pretty much worthless

Sid said...

I think that more women could pass the pull up requirement, if the Marines (and military in general) shifted their physical training away from aerobic activities like running and towards strength training. In general, men have immensely more upper body strength than women, so men can afford to run around all day and still have the strength ready to do some pull ups. In contrast, women need to build the strength to do pull ups.

So it's a double whammy. The military is trying to recruit more women, but they're not giving them the strength training needed to pass the requirements. So, it's time for women to start benching and deadlifting, and the military needs to become even more macho to help women succeed. Funny how these things work?

Anonymous said...

"Balloon frame" = wood frame (I had to look it up.) And of course we have bricklayers in the U.S. because the framing is veneered with brick. Virtually all of them in the southwest are Mexicans.

Anonymous said...

Re Anonymous' comment: "it is rather strange that one never sees female garbage collectors, or for that matter bricklayers or plasterers."
Many years ago I worked on a mason crew on a project in Texas for Brown & Root construction, a major federal contractor. Because of "guidelines: (i.e. quotas) for female participation in the workforce, Brown & Root hired a lot of women as e.g., laborers and one as a mason. The female laborors basically poked at the ground a bit with their shovels, then spent the rest of the time chatting with the foreman. They did not have the strength to shovel all day. The female mason could not make her daily quota of laying block due to lack of strength...the solution? They promoted her to foreman, so she did not have to lay any block at all.

sunbeam said...

I wonder how much of the observed differences in black behavior (with our West African derived blacks) is due to their higher testosterone level.

Everyone has heard of Roid Rage after all.

If

1) You somehow lowered testosterone levels in the high crime under 35 black males, whether violence levels would normalize.

Or

2) Raise white and asian testosterone levels to black levels, and see if they have the same violence propensity.

I'm asking how much is due to testosterone alone, and how much to other genetic factors?

Anonymous said...


Eventually, a couple of decades from now, feminists will be shocked, shocked to discover that women in combat units aren't actually being sent into ground battles with packs full of depleted uranium ammunition, they're just being handed iPads and told to keep track of stuff while the men go do the fighting. This will cause a big hubbub in 2032 and eventually most of the women officers on combat-watching duty will be given promotions, and then the subject will disappear down the memory hole until it becomes the feminist brouhaha of 2052 and then 2072. Democrats have to win elections, you know.


Look, I know this is all tongue in cheek, but you gotta consider the possibility that - with fertility rates being what they are - all these Blue State libtardian nihilists are gonna start dying off in droves over the next 20 years, and that none of Michael Savage's "Red Diaper Doper Babies" are waiting in the wings to replace them, simply because, back in the day, none of those poor doomed fetuses ever made it through a full nine months to a live birth.

Circa 2032, "feminism" will probably have all the relevance that polyester bell-bottom pants* and pet rocks had for us in 2012.

Seriously, which family would you bet on pwning the future of the species:

This family?

Or this family?**

If you don't believe me, then SCIENCE FTW!!!


*Well, everywhere outside of the Derbyshire household.

**Note that The Frankfurt School very graciously forces you to first glance at a portrait of the Kenyan family.

The Frankfurt School never sleeps.

Or at least they must dream about this stuff in their sleep.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if 1914 style trench warfare - the experience of being literally swamped in rain-saoked freezing cold Belgian clay for months on end, with attendant foot-rot, ever comes back into fashion, we will see women flee the military in droves.

You know, very early on, easily ten years ago now, there was already the general impression that [modulo the occasional IED disaster] the Baghdad assignment was much more akin to Spring Break at the beach, vis-à-vis the freezing cold of the mountains of Afghanistan.

Simon in London said...

I remember reading that amongst sedentary folk, men average 60% more upper body strength than women. But after some weeks of physical training, men average 100% more upper body strength - each trained man is on average as strong as two trained women.
It sounds as if the Marines have re-discovered this.
My wife says "But women have more stamina" - which may be true in terms of "sitting in your own excrement in a freezing foxhole" type stamina, very useful for snipers. But I saw in the Territorial Army that it's not true for "forced march with rifle and pack" type stamina, which seems at least as relevant for most current battlefields.

Anonymous said...

I know this isn't what you are aiming at but the demands of Obama and his coterie, none of whom have fought for their country, that women should go into combat to defend them actually makes me feel nauseous.

They should be ashamed.

I suppose it doesn't matter any more, most of your army are Mestizo mercenaries, our army in UK is increasingly composed of foreign mercenaries as well.

Gordo

skeptic said...

We will never reach the point in which this is an issue in 2032. Things are not in balance now and so something has to change. How fast? That is what you have to be really smart to know. But if something can't go on forever, it will stop.

peterike said...

>>>the obvious solution is steroids, lots and lots of steroids

Worked for Serena Williams!


Indeed, though she still probably couldn't beat the 200th best male player.

It never does occur to these feminist idiots that the army those female Marines will be fighting will, itself, contain no women. And that the Marine women will be easily captured. And then...

I guess the armed forces is one place where massive raping of female combat soldiers -- the inevitable outcome -- is not to be considered "rapey."

Really, the Progressive mind is so tangled with contradictions that it's impossible to sort them all out. This is what happens when your entire political "philosophy" is based on a single emotional posture, i.e. "I'm better than you."

f said...

Women suffer from an obvious design fault. The breasts should be located in their upper arms.

Anonymous said...

In 20 years the officer and NCO ranks of the military will be filled by homosexuals and feminists – it will NOT be a safe psychological place to send your 18 year old son – period!

Svigor said...

Despite all the rhetoric, there appear to be a few jobs that women 'just won't touch' regardless of the symbolism and 'oneupmanship'.

"Few" = the ones without climate control.

Chicago said...

The prospect of receiving a regimen of free steroids throughout their enlistment should be tremendously attractive to the entire butch dyke population of America. Growing muscle and facial hair along with a lowering of the voice, all legal, medically supervised and free of charge, should be a great inducement for that group to sign up in large numbers. It's a terrific idea. Anyway, who are we supposed to be fighting in the future? Haven't we bombed everyone at least once?

Anonymous said...

Technology means physical power means less.

Anonymous said...

Must women sign up for selective service?

Crimson Lipstick said...

@ Sunbeam : The estrogen hormone has a much more important impact on violence levels than testosterone.

Anonymous said...

Just have lesbians be marines - then both groups will be satisfied. Lesbians can probably do more pull ups, right?

Anonymous said...

They've already changed the requirements for women. "For now, women will be able to choose whether their upper-body strength is graded on the pull-ups or a 15-second-minimum flexed-arm hang." Expect this supposedly temporary measure to become permanent.

Also consider that the average male marine weighs approximately 180 pounds and the average female marine weighs about 130 pounds. The gap would surely be more than 2 to 3 standard deviations if men and women were asked to pull equal weights.

Tom-in-VA said...

I mentioned in an earlier Steve piece on this issue, that I think the timing of this push for women in combat is very convenient for currently-serving female officers. US combat operations are over in Iraq and winding down in Afghanistan, but female officers will soon have the opportunity to serve in and even command combat UNITS, a key ticket to punch for promotion to higher rank, without having to serve in actual combat itself.

Mark Caplan said...

A couple of decades from now, robots will do all the fighting, bleeding and dying. (Capacitors can bleed, or at least leak.) Robots will no doubt also compose the requisite heart-wrenching war poems and protest songs.

Anonymous said...

firepersons: I see what you did there.

Anonymous said...

I think it's pretty obvious that the "solution" to this is, in the current jargon, not to reduce the standards, but "update" them. Updating physical requirements for all of the MOS's is underway in the Army and I have no doubt that the new, smart standards will be weak enough to allow women to serve in every job.

Anonymous said...

I would highly doubt that Marine recruits learn of the pull-up requirement for the first time when they're already in basic training. Recruiters would tell them in advance. If a woman is planning on joining the Marines, I cannot understand why she wouldn't train herself to do pull-ups before reporting.

Peter

Caleb Cooper said...

We have leader boards posted at the little gym I go to as a motivator, with the Pull Up record being set by the owner at 37.

The women's records are of course ranked separately and do seem to be about two standard deviations lower, with the exception being the owners wife and co owner who did 32. She also holds a women's world record for bench press though, so she's an outlier of outliers.

Farang said...

In France physical requirements for patrolwomen used to be almost as high as for patrolmen. But then someone noticed that patrolmen only had to be reasonably athletic, but by the same standards patrolwomen had to be real athletes (like, in the top 5% of women).

Feminist associations sued at the European level, and they won. The French police had to lower its athletic standards for women: if 50% of men were deemed fit enough to be cops, then 50% of women had to be deemed fit enough, too.

d..... said...

Black women have higher estradiol levels than white women.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/14/9/2147.long

By the man-o-sphere line of reasoning (a contradiction in terms), this means they are more feminine than other women.

Anonymous said...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-cops-man-hijacks-car-forces-woman-to-call-fianc-for-cash-20140102,0,4988585.story

Teen

Anonymous said...

Guys who could not do at least three pullups were not even allowed on the bus down to MCRD, back when I started Marine Corps bootcamp in 1985. At the end of bootcamp, twenty pullups got you a perfect score on that portion of the male PFT, and ten pullups was the minimum. I am not at all surprised that many female Marines can't even do three. My observation was that most of them used various, as it were, lady-ailments as excuses to get out of any strenuous physical activity, when they weren't getting knocked up altogether.

fredyetagain

Marc B said...

Pull ups are an exercise both women and men should be able to perform adequately. It's more of a measure of someone's strength to weight ratio rather than a pure strength metric. Even finger tip pull ups aren't that hard to do, and one-armed pull ups are more of a measure of muscle/tendon recruitment and coordination rather than physical power. A 10 pull up minimum is not out of line for either sex.

Zitscheigst said...

Working Class American is right: Women do all the purchasing decisions, so products are marketed for them, Most adverts are made by Men, insulting Men, which Women like.

Problem is with Reductionism, or Deductive Logic, it grossly simplifies a problem in both Theortical, and Experimental conditions. Hence you actually dont get correct results.

The reality is very complex, and intertwined. Some people call it a new theory "GAIA".

In Hinduism the Universe is Feminine, God being Male infuses it with Energy/Creation etc. Universe is called Bhramanda[Cosmic Egg], inside the Yoni[Womb]. Its pretty complex.



Anonymous said...

With the advancing pace of social lunacy and economic decline in this country, by 2032 I'd be amazed if a United States existed let alone the marine corp.

Anonymous said...

@ Sunbeam I don't think you would have to artificially raise or lower either group, just observe the outliers after testing.

E. Rekshun said...

...it is rather strange that one never sees female garbage collectors, or for that matter bricklyaers or plasterers

or coalminers or roofers, etc., etc.

E. Rekshun said...

It's no secret that female firefighters and policewomen are pretty much worthless.

And female jailers in male prisons.

Anonymous said...

Why are not women subject to Draft registration....once SWPL realize that Tiffany might be raped in Afghanistan then this demand for "equality" would soon fade....BUT the Republican party is as likely to push this as they are to push for the same diversity rules on Wall Street or SCOTUS or wherever as exist on fore deparments.

E. Rekshun said...

Of course this isn't limited to the USMC, all government agencies and corporate America have lower performance standards for women vis-a-vis men.

heartiste said...

Black women have higher estradiol levels than white women.

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/14/9/2147.long

By the man-o-sphere line of reasoning (a contradiction in terms), this means they are more feminine than other women.


Your grasp of biochemistry is limited. Blunt hormone levels aren't the whole story. Black and white men have similar levels of circulating testosterone, but blacks have more sensitive androgen receptors. And as anyone who has seen groups of white and black teenagers hanging out, it's obvious that, on the whole, the black teens are more "ripped". Later in life this muscularity difference may equalize as obesity takes its toll and conceals natural muscle tone.

Pat Boyle said...

I was more or less pro-feminism when I was an undergraduate in the sixties. But I was working my way through college. I spent each morning from 3 to 7 at the Post Office. I think I was all the better for it. It certainly changed my tolerance of feminism.

The Post Office was mandated to open up all its jobs to women. There were already quite a few women doing what I did as a postal clerk. This is a sit-down, indoors, no brains job. But the feminists wanted to be mail carriers - an outdoor, trudge though the rain, carry heavy weights job.

I worked as a mail carrier at Christmas so I knew that the bag could be pretty heavy but I'm a real big guy. So for me there was no problem. But the little hundred pound women who tried to do this job were always missing work. Their bodies were breaking down.

Everybody knew about the female absenteeism problem but we were told to keep it quiet.

I had always known a lot of firemen. I learned that the same sort of thing was going on in the firehouse. For me the essential service a fireman has to perform was to haul my unconscious ass out of a burning building. The physical requirements for the fireman job had been established with just that task in mind. A fireman had to be able to do a fireman's carry. But about this time they dropped many of the most rigorous job tests so as to allow women access to these kind of jobs. I suspect that some lives were lost by this decision.

I used to supervise a lot of women. I once had a large athletic (and very attractive) girl working for me. One day I asked her if she thought she could fight any man in the organization and win. Most of the men were typical out of shape, lard ass bureaucrat's like me. She was a young, large and healthy Amazon-type girl. But she realized that she couldn't do it. In terms of fist fighting there is almost no cross over between the sexes. She was big for a girl at about 5'9" and 145 pounds. But that's not really big. Not big enough for a real fight against a man. She wasn't however in any personal danger, her boyfriend carried a .45 and was built like Schwarzenegger. He was some kind of SWAT team guy.

A hundred million years of evolution have prepared men for combat roles. Good luck Marines with changing that.

Albertosaurus

Reg Cæsar said...

If women don't have enough natural male hormones to validate your theories, then just shoot them up with artificial male hormones.

Then the East Germans will have won.


David M. said...

Back in my West Point days, the British Sandhurst cadets would visit for a military skills competition. The Sandhurst cadets won every time. There were a few reasons for this. One, the competition was invented by and named after Sandhurst, so they really knew what they were doing. Second, each West Point company would field one team, whereas Sandhurst sent a best-of-the-best team. But thirdly, and I think perhaps most importantly, the Sandhurst cadets devised an ingenious way of overcoming the fact that each team was forced to field a certain number of females. They would literally tie the females to the strongest men on the team with a rope, and then drag them between events. Since time of completion was an element in determining victory, I am sure this proved to be very important. The look on those girls' faces though was truly something else - a thousand mile stare as they simply strove to move their feet fast enough to keep from falling flat on their faces.
I wonder if they are still employing this tactic?

Anonymous said...

They also need the drugs that increase oxygen in the blood in addtion to the steroids.

Handle said...

British and U.S. Army results both show male run times four standard deviations higher than those for females. See here.

Anonymous said...

I got to wondering about women-only jobs that theoretically can be done by men as well. I have never seen male labor-and-delivery nurses, dental hygienists, and casino cocktail servers.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said..."And of course we have bricklayers in the U.S. because the framing is veneered with brick. Virtually all of them in the southwest are Mexicans."

In the Southeast US they're all Mexicans or other "latinos" as well. However for decades up into the early 2000's the bricklaying business in the South was a black business. Contractors white or black, commercial or residential hired black masons. Why? Just because that's the way it was. Bricklaying was their business. We knew that as the sun rises in the East, bricklayers were black. Then in a matter of just a couple years they were gone. Its a shame, they were good at it and it's an honorable trade.

I blame the national builders. And partly the younger generation of blacks. I was talking to a bricklayer in the summer of 1989 and he lamented his son not wanting to go into the business. He said "he'd rather mess with his rhymin' music"

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said "I suppose it doesn't matter any more, most of your army are Mestizo mercenaries, our army in UK is increasingly composed of foreign mercenaries as well. Gordo"

I assume by "most of" you mean "increasingly more and more". I don't have timeline or other historical data, but as of November, the US military overall was 75% white, 25% "minority", which includes mestizos. The USMC is 84% white, 16% minority. And 11% black, which only leaves 5% for the mestizos.

Whether this will change as whites eventually realize their government is not on their side so hence there is no reason to fight for it remains to be seen.

5371 said...

Jerry Rice's father was a demanding and perfectionist bricklayer, I read once.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Although all occupation are, in theory at least, open to women, it is rather strange that one never sees female garbage collectors, or for that matter bricklyaers or plasterers, (I'm writing from the UK, and I gather that those latter two ancient and honorable occupations do not exist in the land of 'sheet-rock' and 'baloon-frames')."

Twenty years ago, in Seattle, I encountered women working as plumbers and cable-installers. However, they were quite obviously lesbians.

Uncle Elmer said...

As for your prediction, mine is that female combat soldiers will become the norm and slowly fill the ranks in peacetime. Some will advance to leadership positions in general staff. Eventually they will be fielded against an adversary that doesn't entertain notions of military gender equality and we will get a full-blown debacle and humiliating defeat.

Anonymous said...

The US military needs women and gays to maintain societal support for their spending programs. Women are also more capable people these days at anything that does not involve loading and lifting. The US military is basically a bureaucracy at this point. The typical marine recruit comes from a family headed by a single mother. They have not experienced male authority figures at home or school, so the military needs women to order the new recruits around just like the previous 18 years of their lives.

Female Fort Hood soldiers recruited for prostitution ring, trial hears

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/03/female-fort-hood-soldiers-recruited-for-prostitution-ring-trial-hears

So it is possible the military is running a kind of borello on the sly (remember the female prison guards). I also suspect this is possible with title XI female athletes being recruited with an eye toward the needs of the male athletes.

Steroids and Serena Williams -Lately she has been getting fairly regular drug tests from the anti doping agency. She keeps winning even as she gets older. So it is not clear to me. I cannot site statistics but I think there are more dominant female champions of individual sports than male.

Anonymous said...

While pockets of the USMC ethos survive in some corners, like maybe the infantry, the USMC as a total organization has long since ceased to exist.

This has been going on for a long time, the feminization of the Corps, starting with the crackdown on bootcamp "abuses" (i.e, classic extreme military training that has long proven to create elites) in the late 70's and early 80's.

The picture a few years ago of two male marines lip-locking, with one in the others arms, his legs wrapped around his lover's waist, and in uniform no less, was the last straw.

The Corps, at least as it was understood to be, is long dead. Gen. Amos is the undertaker, prettying up the corpse with a lot of PC decorations.

Good thing we have such super weapons and such feeble foes.

It is all gone, the Corps, Dixie, and any of the rights of the U.S. man. What is left? Harley Davidson maybe? NASCAR racing? But those are just baubles and entertainment.

USMC 76-80, 0341

Anonymous said...

I used to be a physical trainer. I've worked out over 3000 women for months for years at a time. Some very motivated, others somewhat motivated.

Number of women who could do pull-ups: 3

Number of women who could do more than 5: 1

Number of those women I'd want as a SEAL team partner: 0

The criteria being, if I'm shot during an intense firefight, and my legs are paralyzed, can you carry my 235 pound ass over a medium-sized wall with bullets flying around us... or not?

That said, to be fair, perhaps there might be some size-specific job for some 4'9" little monster-woman which could open a door for them for special forces.

Like Tina the Tunnel Crawler, although there might still be gender specific issues unforeseen...

"Pull me out! Pull me out!!!"

"Enemy in the tunnel?"

"Nooo!! SPIDERS!!!!!!!"

Anonymous said...

I agree that it is pretty shocking what has happened to the brick-laying profession in the South.

Outside of the overtly gay [and/or on-the-down-low] black men, who fill the quota set-aside slots in the professions and the bureaucracies, do black men even work anymore AT ALL?

Serious question.

Anonymous said...

Back in the day, in cold weather training, we were taught that, when the c-ration napkins ran out and there weren't any leaves around, to wipe our asses with a snowball.

I was pretty skeptical of the concept until I got in a clutch situation and had to put my training to work. This actually works very, remarkably well so long as the snow is packable.

So does a snow bath. I wonder how a snow-douche would work.

Pinning on stripes is painful, but painful rites of passages create bonding in units. So does inter-battalion boxing smokers. Recently, I looked up my old battalion and on their athletic competition day, there was golf, but no boxing.

I suppose the ladies can golf...

Living in the field as a grunt was a troglodytic experience, it is hard to convey how primitive, dirty, and harsh it could be. I've never met a woman who I believe could have met the challenges of being a grunt in the USMC, at least such as they were when I was in. Lets just start with humping all your gear *and* one of the pieces of an 81mm mortar. Or not taking a bath for a month despite sweltering heat/humidity.

Forget the pullups, that is the easy part.

The USMC, the one of its reputation, is gone, I feel sad for the U.S. young men who are seeking a violent, brawling, warrior culture & cult. Again, some if it lives on in corners but as soon as it rears its head a bit (scout-sniper flags, urinating on enemy dead) it is ruthlessly repressed by Commissar Amos. The rightful CMC, Gen. Mattis, was judged an enemy of the people by the Cathedral...

It is sad beyond belief, and hard for me to admit, but the words that many people know from Full Metal Jacket, that the Corps lives forever, is just not true.

I weep inside and cling to my guns and religion...

Zeitscheigst said...

Ironically, in Hinduism God is called a "Spider", Call him "Spiderman", What this actually means is "He spins the Universe, from his Body", and at the Time of desolution devours his Spiders web like a Spider.

Life as such is called the Journey of Maha-vishnu, We know that the Universe is expanding which is True, As Vishnu expands and fills the Fourteen Worlds, and then retracts. These cycles go on on and on. Cycles, within Cycles within...

Presently its start of KaliYuga retro, Things start breaking down. Its all KARMA,

As the Wise man said " Karma cuts both ways, best is to do nothing; Only Worship God".

God the Ultimate Male.

Soarin said...

"firepersons"

Please stick with real words, instead of lefty conventions. Just because they want to force them on us, doesn't mean we have to use them. Using them legitimizes them, even when you do it jokingly. If you don't want to use fireman, use firefighter instead.

Anonymous said...

Quite simply, morale and physical fitness are key elements for the military.

And imagine the collapse in morale when combat soldiers realize that their female officers have no combat experience and can't keep up with the physical standards.

Anonymous said...

In the mid 1980s, USNA tried converting women to pullups (vice arm hang). Only 50% were able to get 3 pullups even after several weeks of dedicated training. Strength training is not the answer. Women actually gain strength less quickly than men.

Anonymous said...

"Female Fort Hood soldiers recruited for prostitution ring, trial hears

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/03/female-fort-hood-soldiers-recruited-for-prostitution-ring-trial-hears"

Were they by chance working for a pimp named Upgrayedd? That's spelled with two D's, for a double dose of his pimping.

Jake said...

55% of women can't do three pullups by the end of boot camp?

Holy shiz. I can do three times that many and still don't consider myself fit enough to be a Marine.

And that 55% failure rate is even worse than it sounds. Pullups are relative to body weight - a 200 pound man who can do three pullups is stronger than a 150 pound man who can do the same number. Most activities in combat, though, aren't about strength relative to your body weight.

durufur murmurer said...

I can do 12 pull-ups right now. It's okay to feel a little depressed about that.

The most pull-ups I ever saw a woman do at the gym was five, and she was lean and looked like a soccer player.

Anonymous said...

"I weep inside and cling to my guns and religion..."

Dump the religion, replace with boxes of bullets.

Solus said...

We all know about the Feminine Mystic, "No" means "Yes". Women in India are named after Plants and flowers. One plant that grows here, coloquially called "DO NOT TOUCH ME" plant. Its leaves fold and shrivel moment you touch it. Its also called "Gaaia Maari" [Wound Healer], an ointment of its flower is used in wound healing.

Cail Corishev said...

Men are almost always stronger than women, but that's especially true in upper body strength. There's just no comparison there. You could take a group of very fit women -- maybe an NCAA basketball team -- and have them do pull-ups every day for as long as you like, and they could probably never out-pull-up a randomly selected group of teenage boy ballplayers. You can only strengthen what's there in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Hello Steve,
I'd like to chime in on what commenter Sid wrote when he said

"I think that more women could pass the pull up requirement, if the Marines (and military in general) shifted their physical training away from aerobic activities like running and towards strength training."

I am a certified strength and conditioning coach and nationally ranked weightlifter that works with high school, collegiate, adult and masters (40+) level athletes each day. Most of the women at my gym and at many of the crossfit gyms where I have trained and done seminars can perform multiple strict pullups. The noted strength coach Charles Poliquin writes that any strength coach that cannot get a non-obese female to do 12 strict pullups within a 3 month time frame does not know what he is doing. I agree fully with that statement.
The progressions for teaching women how to perform multiple unbroken pullups are well documented and available for free on the Internet (Poliquin has put several of these progressions on his website and T-Nation). That women can acquire these skills by following said progressions is demonstrated each day at Crossfit gyms around the country (please note, I am not a crossfitter and not shilling for them as such). Any qualified strength coach using a good system of weight training and bodyweight progressions will have his female clients performing pullups in a short time frame--certainly within the 13 weeks the Marine corps uses for its boot camp.
I understand that during these 13 weeks, female and male recruits must learn a number of other skills. However, a good weight training regimen can take as little as 40 minutes per day and still produce the desired results, especially with something as straightforward as a pullup.

Poliquin explains things here: http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/432/Rising_to_Pull-Up_Success.aspx

Pat Boyle said...

I wonder if your suggestion of more steroids for women is sufficient. Tamara Press won the 1964 Olympic shot put with a toss of 18 meters. But Dallas Long and Randy Matson in the men's event both went over 20 meters.

Press and her sister (brother?) were almost certainly, if not actual men in drag, women stoked to the gills on testosterone. Yet they were still very far behind the real boys.

The fetus, as I remember is first dosed with sex hormones, at the end of the first trimester. Homosexuality and all sorts of gender anomalies date from that period. You become a man or a woman very early. I wonder if it's possible for a woman to ever catch up later in life no matter how many male sex hormones she takes.

It's interesting to consider the differences between the sexes in their ability to be a jet fighter pilot. Women have a natural advantage in their ability to pull 'g's. Yet the female brain seems to have been set early on to not prefer that role. Go to the mall. All the teenagers crowding around the shoot-'em-up arcade games are boys. Girls just don't seem interested.

Albertosaurus

Steve Sailer said...

It's possible that while young men tend to get much stronger during Marine Corps boot camp, but young women tend to get worn down with injuries and general exhaustion.

Anonymous said...

I like how the National Post disabled the comments on the article of this subject, because ya know, we couldn't have anyone pointing out the truth.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

""Female Fort Hood soldiers recruited for prostitution ring, trial hears""

Were they by chance working for a pimp named Upgrayedd? That's spelled with two D's, for a double dose of his pimping."

Fort "Hood" indeed.

Anonymous said...

Re: "This will cause a big hubbub in 2032 and eventually most of the women officers on combat-watching duty will be given promotions, and then the subject will disappear down the memory hole until it becomes the feminist brouhaha of 2052 and then 2072..."

You actually believe western feminists and the civilization which excretes them will exist in 2052, never mind 2072?

Wow. I never pegged you for an optimist....

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Said:

"The noted strength coach Charles Poliquin writes that any strength coach that cannot get a non-obese female to do 12 strict pullups within a 3 month time frame does not know what he is doing. I agree fully with that statement. "

He did not say that. The minute I read the above, I called bullshit. An absolute falsehood. Maybe you need to do some more studying before "teaching" us lessons, Sparky.

I've trained thousands of females, and again, most are miserable at pull-ups. Some can do a few, some even more, but most can't. Quit spreading misinformation. It's annoying.

Anonymous said...

Dump the religion, replace with boxes of bullets.

You're doing it wrong. It's "praise the Lord" and "pass the ammunition".

Anonymous said...

Ronda Rousey does not get in the Octagon with 135lb guys and everyone knows why.

Svigor said...

The typical marine recruit comes from a family headed by a single mother. They have not experienced male authority figures at home or school, so the military needs women to order the new recruits around just like the previous 18 years of their lives.

Puff-puff pass, willya?

dcite said...

A DC newspaper had a front page photo of a female Marines team (or whatever they're called). They were a flimsy looking bunch; rather dour looking but not really that butch. The blurb said they were considered a combat-ready fightng machine or something to that effect. It was the Washington Times. If it had been the WaPo, they would have doctored the photo, or put other peoples' bodies (those tennis players maby) on under the heads.
It was pretty sad really. Who needs more killin' machines.